Adolf Eichmann - History Learning Site Adolf Eichmann Citation: C N Trueman "Adolf Eichmann" historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site, 22 May 2015. 16 Aug 2016. Adolf Eichmann is labeled as the man who masterminded the actual organisation of the Holocaust . Adolf Eichmann was a SS officer who planned with meticulous detail the sending of Jews and other groups to death camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau , Treblinka and Sobibor . Such work was to earn Eichmann the title ‘Chief Executioner of the Third Reich’. After dropping out of college in 1925, Eichmann worked as a travelling salesman for the Vacuum Oil Company. Such work brought him back, once again, to Germany in 1930. While in Germany he joined the ‘Wandervogel’ group – a group that was anti-Semite in its views but seems to have tolerated Jews to be in the movement.

In 1932, aged 26, Eichmann moved back to Austria where he joined the Austrian Nazi Party.Adolf Eichmann was born on March 19th, 1906 in Solingen. His father was a reasonably successful businessman who moved the family to Linz in Austria in 1914. After serving in the Austrian army in World War One , Eichmann’s father moved the family back to Germany in 1920. In April 1932, Eichmann joined the SS Division of the Austrian Nazi Party. In November of the same year he became a full SS member and was appointed as a SS-Mann. For about one year, Eichmann served in Salzburg. When Hitler came to power in January 1933, Eichmann returned to Germany and applied to join the German SS full time. His application was accepted and in November 1933, Eichmann was appointed to the administrative staff at Dachau Concentration Camp, just outside of Munich.

In 1934, Eichmann applied to join the fear Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei) and his transfer was accepted in November 1934. He worked in the SD’s headquarters in Berlin. His work as an administrator was quickly recognised and in 1937, he was commissioned as an SS-Untersturmführer. After working in Austria after the Anschluss in 1938, Eichmann was selected by senior SS officers to create the Central Office for Jewish Administration in Austria, which was an organisation that was introduced to expel/deport Jews from Austria after they had left their property and wealth to the Third Reich. Once again, Eichmann demonstrated his organisational skills. It was at this time that Eichmann made a study of Judaism which led to him formulating extreme anti-Semite beliefs. At the start of the war in 1939 , Eichmann worked in the Office for Jewish Emigration. He had made a visit to Palestine in 1937 and developed contacts in the Zionist movement which he used to speed up the deportation of Jews from Nazi controlled Europe.

By late 1939, Eichmann’s work covered the whole of Nazi-occupied Europe and in 1940 , he was transferred to the Gestapo. In 1941 , Eichmann had been promoted to Obersturmbannführer and he was appointed the commander of the Gestapo’s Jewish Division of the Religions Department. In January 1942 , Eichmann attended the infamous Wannsee Conference at the personal invitation of Reinhard Heydrich. Eichmann took the minutes at this meeting. It was at the Wannsee meeting that the ‘Final Solution’ was decided on and Eichmann was appointed “Transportation Administrator”. It was to be Eichmann’s job to ensure that the rail transportation was available to send the Jews and other groups to the expanding death camps in Poland. He performed his task with zeal and it is reported that on occasions Eichmann was heard to boast that he had sent 5 million Jews to their deaths as a result of the efficiency of the rail network he controlled. In 1944 , Eichmann was sent to Hungary after the Nazis had occupied the country.

Hungary’s proximity to Auschwitz-Birkenau mean that their fate was effectively sealed once Eichmann arrived to take up his new task. As many as 400,000 Hungarian Jews were sent to Auschwitz. In 1945 , with the war turning against Nazi Germany, Eichmann did what he could to protect himself. In 1944, he had been commissioned in the Waffen-SS as a reserve officer. This meant he could be called to the eastern front at any time. In 1945, Eichmann fled Hungary and went to Austria and went into hiding. Although he was arrested by the Americans, he gave them a false name and was released as a demobilised German soldier. In 1947, Eichmann managed to leave Germany and went to live in South America. In 1947, Eichmann left Europe as ‘Ricardo Clement’ and flew to Buenos Aires in Argentina. He spent a number of years doing various jobs ranging from water engineer to rabbit farmer. In 1960, the Israeli Secret Service (Mossad) learned that ‘Ricardo Clement’ was Adolf Eichmann.

On May 21st, 1960, Eichmann was brought to Israel as part of a covert kidnapping operation by Mossad. He stood trial in Israel for crimes against humanity, amongst other charges. Eichmann’s trial started on February 11th, 1961. As well as crimes against humanity, Eichmann was charged with crimes against the Jewish people. The trial was broadcast live throughout the world. Eichmann’s defence was that he had only been following orders from a higher authority. The three judges at the trial did not accept this and he was found guilty on all charges. On December 15th, 1961, Eichmann was sentenced to death and he was hanged a few minutes after midnight on June 1st, 1962. His body was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea. Top 15 Most Evil Nazis - Listverse Top 15 Most Evil Nazis Froody August 22, 2010 The Third Reich, 1933-1945, was arguably the most heinous regime in history.

Comprised of some equally malevolent characters, this administration was responsible for initiating the biggest and most costly war mankind has ever known, and perpetrated one of the worlds biggest acts of genocide, in what is now referred to as the Holocaust. This list could have been bigger but I settled on these 15 (mostly) NSDAP members. 15 Hermann Goering A WW1 veteran, the Reichsmarschall was head of the luftwaffe, and the founder of the gestapo. After the fall of France he stole millions of pounds worth of art from Jews, and amassed a personal fortune. Goering took part in the beer hall putsch of 1923 and was wounded in the groin. Subsequently, taking morphine for pain relief, he became addicted to the drug for the rest of his life. In 1940, the Marshal ordered the bombing of the civilian population of Britain (the Blitz) and was involved in planning the holocaust. Goering was the highest ranking defendant during the Nuremberg Trials. Sentenced to hang, he committed suicide in his cell the night before his execution by cyanide ingestion. This man caused the deaths of millions.

Learn more about his life when you buy Goering: The Rise and Fall of the Notorious Nazi Leader at Amazon.com! 14 Ilse Koch Known as The “Bitch of Buchenwald” because of her sadistic cruelty towards prisoners, Ilse Koch was married to another wicked Nazi SS, Karl Otto Koch, but outshone him in the depraved, inhumane, disregard for life which was her trademark. She used her sexual prowess by wandering around the camps naked, with a whip, and if any man so much as glanced at her she would have them shot on the spot. The most infamous accusation against Ilse Koch was that she had selected inmates with interesting tattoos to be killed, so that their skins could be made into lampshades for her home (though, unfortunately, no evidence of these lampshades has been found). After the war she was arrested and spent time in prison on different charges, eventually hanging herself in her cell in 1967, apparently consumed by guilt. 13 Joseph Goebbels Dr. Paul Josef Goebbels was the Reich Minister of Propaganda, and a vehement antisemite.

Goebbels speeches of hatred against Jews arguably initiated the final solution, and no doubt helped sway public opinion to the detriment of the Jewish people. A sufferer of polio, Goebbels had a club foot, but this did not effect his standing as the second best orator in The Reich. He coined the phrase “Total War”, and was instrumental in convincing the nation to fight long after the war was effectively lost. At the end of the war, a devoted Goebbels stayed in Berlin with Hitler and killed himself, along with his wife Magda and their six young children. 12 Franz Stangl Born in Austria, Stangl was a commandant of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps. In 1940, through a direct order from Heinrich Himmler, Stangl became superintendent of the T-4 Euthanasia Program at the Euthanasia Institute at Schloss Hartheim where mentally and physically disabled people were sent to be killed. Stangl accepted, and grew accustomed to the killing of Jews , perceiving prisoners not as humans but merely as “cargo”. He is quoted as saying, “I remember standing there, next to the pits full of black-blue corpses….

somebody said ‘What shall we do with rotting garbage?’ that started me thinking of them as cargo. Stangl escaped Germany after the war and was eventually arrested in Brazil, in 1967. He was tried for the deaths of around 900,000 people. He admitted to these killings, but argued: “My conscience is clear. I was simply doing my duty”. He died of heart failure in 1971, while serving a life sentence. 11 Paul Blobel During the German invasion of the Soviet Union, he commanded Sonderkommando 4a of Einsatzgruppe C, that was active in Ukraine. Following Wehrmacht troops into Ukraine, the Einsatzgruppen would be responsible for liquidating political and racial undesirables. Blobel was primarily responsible for the Babi Yar massacre at Kiev. Up to 59,018 executions are attributable to Blobel, though during testimony he was alleged to have killed 10,000-15,000. He was later sentenced to death by the U.S. Nuremberg Military Tribunal in the Einsatzgruppen Trial.

He was hanged at Landsberg Prison on June 8, 1951. 10 Josef Kramer Kramer was the Commandant of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Dubbed “The Beast of Belsen” by camp inmates; he was a notorious Nazi war criminal, directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. Kramer adopted his own draconian policies at Auschwitz and Belsen and, along with Irma Grese, he terrorized his prisoners without remorse. After the war he was convicted of war crimes and hanged in Hameln prison by noted British executioner Albert Pierrepoint. Whilst on trial he stated his lack of feelings as he was “just following orders”. 9 Ernst Kaltenbrunner Austrian born Kaltenbrunner was chief of security in the Reich where he replaced Reinhard Heydrich. He was president of Interpol from 1943 to 1945, and was there to destroy the enemies within the Reich. Kaltenbrunner was a physically imposing man with scars on his cheeks, which made him look like the tyrant he really was.

Kaltenbrunner was one of the main perpetrators of the holocaust and he was hanged after the Nuremberg trials on 16th October 1946. He was the highest ranked SS man to be hanged. 8 Friedrich Jeckeln Jeckeln led one of the largest collections of Einsatzgruppen, and was personally responsible for ordering the deaths of over 100,000 Jews, Slavs, Roma, and other “undesirables” of the Third Reich, in the occupied Soviet Union during World War II. Jeckeln developed his own methods to kill large numbers of people, which became known as the “Jeckeln System” during the Rumbula, Babi Yar, and Kamianets-Podilskyi Massacres. After the war he was tried and hanged by the Russian,s in Riga on February 3, 1946. 7 Oskar Dirlewanger WW1 veteran Dr. Oskar Dirlewanger led the infamous SS Dirlewanger Brigade, a penal battalion comprised of the sickest most vicious criminals in the Riech.

Dirlwanger raped two 13 year old girls on separate occasions in the 1930s, and lost his Dr. title after being imprisoned, only to have it reinstated after his bravery Fighting in the Spanish Civil War. He volunteered for the SS at the start of WW2, and was given his own battalion due to his excellent soldiery, Dirlewanger’s unit was employed in operations against partisans in the occupied Soviet Union, but he and his soldiers are widely believed to have tortured, raped and murdered civilians (including children) and he allegedly fed female hostages strychnine in order to entertain his soldiers whilst they died in agony. Dirlewanger was captured by the French in a hospital after being injured at the front as he had always led his soldiers into battle. The French handed him over to the Polish, who locked him up and beat and tortured him over the next few days. He died from injuries inflicted by the Polish guards around June 5, 1945. 6 Odilo Globocnik Odilo Globocnik was a prominent Austrian Nazi, and later an SS leader. He was one of the men most responsible for the murder of millions of people during the Holocaust.

Globocnik was responsible for liquidating the Warsaw Ghetto, which contained about 500,000 Jews, the largest Jewish community in Europe, and the second largest in the world, after New York. He is also known for liquidating the Bialystok Ghetto, which stood out for its strong resistance to German occupation and resettling a large quantity of Poles under the premise of ethnic cleansing. He was in charge of the implementation and supervision of the Lublin reservation, to which 95,000 Jews were deported, with its adjacent network of forced labour camps in the Lublin district. He was also in charge of over 45,000 Jewish laborers. On May 21st, Shortly after capture, Globocnik committed suicide by means of a cyanide capsule hidden in his mouth. Take a look inside one of the most horrific periods in human history with Doctors From Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans at Amazon.com! 5 Adolf Eichmann Eichmann was the organizational talent that orchestrated the mass deportation of Jews from their countries into waiting ghettos and extermination camps.

A prodigy of Heydrich, he is sometimes referred to as “the architect of the Holocaust”. He learned Hebrew and studied all things Jewish in order to manipulate Jews, through his power of coercion, to leave their occupied territories and possessions in favor of a better life in the ghettos. At the end of the war he was doing the same to Hungarian Jews and, if it wasn’t for the intervention of Raoul Wallenberg, the number of victims of the holocaust would have been much higher. He fled Germany at the end of the war via a ratline to south America, and was captured by the Mossad in Argentina. He was extradited to Israel and executed by hanging in 1962, after a highly publicized trial. Eichmanns death was, and is, the only civil execution ever carried out in Israel. 4 Joseph Mengele Mengele initially gained notoriety for being one of the SS physicians who supervised the selection of arriving transports of prisoners, determining who was to be killed and who was to become a forced laborer, but is far more infamous for performing grisly human experiments on camp inmates, for which Mengele was called the “Angel of Death”. His crimes were evil and of many.

When it was reported that one hospital block was infested with lice, Mengele gassed every single one of the 750 women assigned to it. Mengele used Auschwitz as an opportunity to continue his research on heredity, using inmates for human experimentation. He was particularly interested in identical twins. Mengele’s experiments included attempts to take one twin’s eyeballs and attach them to the back of the other twin’s head, changing eye color by injecting chemicals into children’s eyes, various amputations of limbs, and other brutal surgeries. He survived the war, and after a period living incognito in Germany, he fled to South America, where he evaded capture for the rest of his life, despite being hunted as a Nazi war criminal. 3 Reinhard Heydrich Heydrich was appointed Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. In August 1940, he was appointed and served as President of Interpol. Heydrich chaired the 1942 Wannsee Conference, which discussed plans for the deportation and extermination of all Jews in German occupied territory, thus being the mastermind of the holocaust.

He was attacked by British trained Czech agents on 27 May, 1942, sent to assassinate him in Prague. He died slightly over a week later from complications arising from his injuries. The foundations of genocide were laid by Heydrich and carried out in Operation Reinhard in his name. 2 Adolf Hitler Hitler would be some people’s choice to be number one but not mine. Adolf Hitler went from being a lance corporal in the German army, to chancellor of Germany in 15 years. The holocaust may have been his subordinates doing, but he knew about it, which, amazingly, has only been fairly recently proven. Adolf Hitler had a major role in initiating the bloodiest conflict ever, which still has a massive bearing on the world to this day. His megalomania saw large parts of Europe devastated in his lifetime and forced into communism after the war. 1 Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Himmler, the architect of the holocaust and considered to be the biggest mass murderer ever, by some (although it’s really Josef Stalin). The holocaust would not have happened if not for this man. He tried to breed a master race of Nordic appearance, the Aryan race.

His plans for racial purity were ended by Hitler’s vanity in making rash military decisions rather than letting his generals make them, thus ending the war prematurely. Himmler was captured after the war. He unsuccessfully tried to negotiate with the west, and was genuinely shocked to be treated as a criminal upon capture. He committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule he had bit upon. More Great Lists Report On Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Eichmann, And Rudolf Hess - Book Report / History Other Report On Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Eichmann, And Rudolf Hess This essay Report On Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Eichmann, And Rudolf Hess is available for you on Essays24.com! Search Term Papers, College Essay Examples and Free Essays on Essays24.com - full papers database. Autor: anton • November 13, 2010 • 1,837 Words (8 Pages) • 837 Views Page 1 of 8 In this report I will talk about Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Eichmann, and Rudolf Hess, who were Nazi Party leaders and officials and were related to Adolf Hitler.

I will also discuss who these people were and what they did, why they did these things, when they did these things, where they did these things, and perhaps how they did these things. The first of these officers was Heinrich Himmler. Himmler was the head of the Gestapo (German State Police) and the Waffen-SS (militarized units of SS, which stands for Schutzstaffel, a group of Hitler's personal body guards), and Minister of the Interior from 1943 to 1945. He was also the organizer of the mass murder of Jews in the Third Reich. Heinrich Himmler was born in Munich on October 7, 1900, the son of a religious, Roman Catholic schoolmaster, and was educated at a secondary school in Landshut. Himmler served as an officer in the Eleventh Bavarian Regiment at the end of World War I, and later obtained a diploma in agriculture from Munich Technical High School in 1922. Later on Himmler joined a Para-military, nationalist organization and participated in the Munich Beer-Hall putsch.

Then in the year of 1927 he got married, and returned to poultry farming, but wasn't successful. In January 1929, he was appointed as the head of Hitler's personal bodyguards. He was a superb organizer, and had already expanded the SS to 50,000 men from 300 by 1933. By the year of 1936, Himmler had combined police power in Germany and was named Chief of the German police on June 17 of that year. Now as the chief, his power was unlimited, and in addition he was also responsible for the security services and the concentration camps. Himmler's men staged the fake border incident that Hitler used to justify the invasion of Poland at the outbreak of World War II. As the war went on, the armored portions of the SS began to rival the Armed Forces for power in the military field, which ended in Himmler's being named Minister of the Interior in 1943 and chief of the Replacement Army in 1944. Right up to the end, he was one of Hitler's most loyal men.

It came time, when Hitler started to order total destruction of the Jews, and for this job he chose his most loyal follower, who was Himmler. Himmler obeyed the order he received with his usual thoroughness and efficiency. He carried out his orders with efficiency and enthusiasm. The first murders were carried out by shooting. The SS men wanted something more efficient that would accelerate the killing, and would save time for them. As a result poisonous gases were used, which killed people much faster. It is estimated that around 6 million Jews were killed during the Final Solution, and as many as another 6 million non-Jews. Himmler was thoroughly involved in implementing the final solution. At a speech in Poznan on October 4, 1943, Himmler said: I am talking about the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people. It is one of those things that is easily said.

"The Jewish people is being exterminated," every Party member will tell you, "perfectly clear, it's part of our plans, we're eliminating the Jews, exterminating them, a small matter." At the end of the war, Himmler made attempts to negotiate peace through the world, especially with the Jewish Congress. He attempted to flee in disguise in May 1945, however he was captured by British forces, and he admitted his identity. When a doctor was asked to search him to ensure he did not have hidden poison in his possession, then Himmler bit down on a cyanide capsule hidden in his mouth, and was dead in a few minutes. Like Hitler, he chose suicide as his way to exit the world as well. Another important Nazi party member was Adolf Eichmann. He was born in Solingen on March 19, 1906, the son of a middle-class Protestant family that had moved to Linz Austria. This was where Adolf spent his youth and ultimately failed to complete his engineering studies. Later he worked as a laborer, and eventually became a salesman for a Vacuum Oil Company. On April 1, 1932 Adolf Eichmann joined the Austrian Nazi Party.

After Adolf lost his job, he joined the exiled Austrian legion and underwent fourteen months of military training. In 1934 Adolf found an opening in Himmler's Security Service (SD Ð'- Sicherheitsdienst, Nazi party's own intelligence and security body). By the beginning of 1935 he was the official responsible for Ð''Jewish questions' at the Berlin head office of the SD. In the year 1937 Adolf Eichmann went and explored the possibilities of Jewish emigration from Nazi Germany to Palestine. From August 1938 Adolf was in charge of the office for Jewish emigration in Vienna. Then Eichmann started the deportation of Jews and over 150,000 Jews left Austria. By 1939 Adolf Eichmann was handling forced deportations to Poland. In December 1939 Eichmann was transferred to Gestapo of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA - Reichssicherheitshauptamt, the central security department of the German Reich, formed in 1939, and combining the security police and the S.D.) where he started dealing with Jewish affairs and evacuation.

In the year 1941 his resettlement department began the task of creating death camps, and developing gassing techniques. Adolf eventually became a high-ranking official in Nazi Germany, and a member of SS (Schutzstaffel). He was largely responsible for the extermination of millions of people during the Holocaust, in particular the Jews. He also organized the identification and transportation of people to various concentration camps. Adolf Eichmann is known as, and is often referred to as Ð''Chief Executioner'. After World War II, Eichmann was captured by US troops. However, in 1946 he managed to escape from a prison camp. After many travels Eichmann settled in Argentina in 1958, under the name of Ricardo Klement. Soon Eichmann was tracked down by Israeli secret agents on May 2, 1960, living in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. Nine days later he was secretly taken to Israel, to be publicly tried in Jerusalem. The trial took place between April 2 and August 14, 1961. On December 2, 1961 Eichmann was sentenced to death for crimes against the Jewish people and crimes against humanity.

On May 31, 1962 he was hanged in Ramleh prison. Another important Nazi member was Rudolf Hess. Rudolf Hess was born in Alexandria, Egypt, on April 26, 1894. He was son of a prosperous wholesaler and exporter. Hess was a shy and an ... Adolf Eichmann Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Adolf Eichmann Adolf Eichmann ( March 19 , 1906 - May 31 , 1962 ) was a high-ranking official in Nazi Germany , and a member of the SS ( Schutzstaffel ). He was largely responsible for the logistics of the extermination of millions of people during the Holocaust , in particular, Jews , which was called the "final solution" (Endl�sung). He organised the identification and transportation of people to the various concentration camps . Therefore, he is often referred to as the 'Chief Executioner' of the Third Reich . Adolf Eichmann was born and raised in Solingen , Germany .

As a child, Eichmann was rather dark-complexioned, and other children taunted him for looking like "a Jew." In 1934 he served as an SS corporal at Dachau concentration camp where he attracted the attention of Reinhard Heydrich . In 1935 he visited Palestine to assess the possibility of exiling the Jews en masse to Palestine, however the occupying British authorities came to learn of his negotiations with local Arab leaders and forced him to depart. Eichmann attended the Wannsee conference in 1942, which was responsible for the determination of issues relating to 'the final solution of the Jewish question'. Receiving the rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel), Eichmann was made head of Gestapo Department IV B 4, which was responsible for all the logistics relating to the extermination underway. After World War II , Eichmann was captured by US troops. However, in 1946 he managed to escape from a prison camp.

After many travels (mainly in Italy and the Middle East ) he settled in Argentina in 1950, under the name of Ricardo Klement, and brought his family to the country soon afterwards. Kidnapped by Peter Malkin of the Mossad (Israeli secret service) on May 11 , 1960 and flown to Israel as part of a covert operation, he faced trial in front of an Israeli court in Jerusalem starting on February 11 , 1961 . He was indicted on 15 criminal charges, including charges of crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people, and membership in an outlaw organization. The trial caused huge international controversy as well as an international sensation. The Israeli government deliberately fueled the sensation by allowing news programs all over the world to broadcast the trial live without any restrictions. TV viewers saw a nondescript man sitting in a bulletproof glass booth while witnesses, including many Holocaust survivors, were testifying against him and his role in transporting victims to the extermination camps. The horrible descriptions of Nazi atrocities that often accompanied the testimony forced the entire world to face the reality of the Holocaust and the evils of Nazi rule.

During the whole trial, Eichmann insisted that he was only "following orders". Convicted on all counts, Eichmann was sentenced to death (the only civil death penalty ever carried out in Israel) on December 2, 1961 and was hanged on May 31 , 1962 at Ramleh prison. Fact-index.com financially supports the Wikimedia Foundation. Displaying this page does not burden Wikipedia hardware resources. This article is from Wikipedia . All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License . The "Final Solution" | Students will learn that: 1. An entire state bureaucracy was mobilized solely for the purpose of annihilating Jews. 2. German technological expertise was harnessed to make the mass murder as efficient and low-cost as possible. 3. Special camps were created solely for the purpose of killing Jews and other “undesirables.” 4. The conditions in these death camps and other concentration camps were brutal, and designed purposely to make survival only temporary. CHAPTER CONTENT On October 23, 1941, S.S.

head Heinrich Himmler issued an order down the Nazi chain of command which heralded a major change in Nazi policy with respect to the “Jewish problem.” Until then, the Nazis worked vigorously to encourage Jews to emigrate. The Madagascar Plan (see below) was one example of strategies which were formulated to remove Jews from Germany and its occupied lands. As is described in more detail in Chapter 11, many countries refused to accept Jewish refugees. This shift in policy resulted in the deportation of Jews to camps and ghettos in the East. The policy to “resettle” Jews to these ghettos and camps was a significant step in what was to become the “Final Solution” the systematic murder of millions of Jews. Madagascar Plan Before the “Final Solution” was devised to murder all Jews in Nazi jurisdiction, the scheme the Nazis planned to rid their land of the Jews was forced emigration. In 1940, plans were devised by the Nazis to ship all Jews under Nazi control to Madagascar, an island in the Indian Ocean.

It was not until 1941 that Nazi bureaucrats were referring to the “Final Solution” (Gesamtlosung) in the context of genocide rather than a “Territorial Final Solution” (territoriale Endlosung) in the context of forced emigration. Some historians believe that the Madagascar Plan was a smokescreen for Hitler’s desire to murder European Jewry (see page 62 of Marrus’ The Holocaust in History). Deportation In response to this new “resettlement” policy, the first death camps were designed. Chelmno was the site of the first gassing of Jews, which occurred on December 8, 1941. The Nazi war machine had limited resources, including slave labor, much of it Jewish. Even so, the Nazis made a decision that the annihilation of the Jews of Europe was a more important achievement than the value of their labor. Similarly, the Nazis made a decision not to let the need for transport for the war effort interfere with the need for trucks and rail cars to carry the Jews to concentration camps and death centers. It was Adolf Eichmann who masterminded the logistics of the deportation of Jews.

(1) Deportation was the first step in the “Final Solution.” Typically, the Jews were informed that they were going to be resettled for work. Each was told to take some clothing, blankets, shoes, eating utensils (but no knife), a bowl, and some money. Rounded up, they were herded into trucks for the trip to the rail station, or were forced to walk. The rail cars were often strategically located at a distance from the passenger terminals, so that this scene would not arouse the ire of the local populace. Many who did see chose not to protest. The deportees were forced into rail cars, most of which were windowless, unheated cattle cars, and squeezed in so tightly that most were forced to stand. The doors were then sealed shut from the outside. Neither drinking water nor sanitary facilities were available. Each car held more than 120 people, and many froze or suffocated to death or succumbed to disease during the trip to the camps. The dead were not removed from the cars during the journey because the Nazi bureaucracy insisted that each body entering a car be accounted for at the destination.

(1) Adolph Eichmann Transporting enough Jews to feed the death camps was a major logistical undertaking. The Nazi officer in charge of this duty was Adolph Eichmann, who traveled from country to country that was under German occupation to systematically plan the deportation of the local Jewish population to the death camps. Eichmann received various levels of cooperation from each of the various occupied governments. But in countries such as Holland, Belgium, Albania, Denmark, Finland and Bulgaria, some Jews were saved from their deaths by the action of the sympathetic populace and government officials. Denmark’s government and populace were exemplary in their heroism in saving Jews. In other countries such as Poland, Greece, France, and Yugoslavia, the deportation of Jews to the death camps was facilitated by the cooperation of the government. Ghettoization (December 1939 to March 1942) Although the Nazis were successful in isolating Jews socially and economically, the actual physical isolation of the Eastern European population did not begin until December 1939. Jews had known the ghetto since the Middle Ages, although Jews were then permitted to leave the ghetto during the day and participate in the business of the general community.

The purpose of the Nazi ghetto, however, was to create a total confinement for the Jewish population, turning entire neighborhoods into a prison unlike the ghettos of centuries past. The Nazis hoped that the wretched ghetto conditions would deplete the Jewish population quickly and naturally through starvation, disease and cold. The ghetto also served as the holding area for eventual transport to the death camps for those who were able to survive. Ghetto inhabitants in many areas were forced to become slaves for German industry. Factories were built alongside or within ghetto walls so that industries could take advantage of this free labor. The administration of Jewish life was the responsibility of the Jewish Councils, the Judenröte (see Chapter 11). Life in the ghetto was abominable, and thousands died. There was no medicine. The food ration allowed was a quarter of that available for the Germans, barely enough to allow survival. The water supply was contaminated in many ghettos. Epidemics of tuberculosis, typhoid, and lice were common. Bodies of new victims piled up in the streets faster than they could be carted away. In the Warsaw ghetto, more than 70,000 died of exposure, disease, and starvation during the first two winters.

Almost all of those who survived the Warsaw ghetto were either killed when the ghetto was razed in 1943 or died in the death camps. Theresienstadt Ghetto The Theresienstadt ghetto was established by the Nazis in an 18th century fortress in Czechoslovakia on November 24, 1941. More than 150,000 Jews passed through the ghetto during its four-year existence, which was used as a holding area for eventual murder in Auschwitz. By 1943, rumors began circulating in the international community that the Nazis were exterminating Jews in gas chambers, and that the conditions of the ghettos did not permit survival. The Nazis rebuilt parts of this ghetto to serve as a “showpiece” for propaganda purposes. Flower gardens were planted in the ghetto. Shops, schools, and a cafe were built. When an investigating commission of the International Red Cross came to visit, they did not see a typical ghetto. In July 1944 the Nazis made a documentary propaganda film about life in this ghetto. After the movie was completed, most of the Jewish “actors” were shipped to their death at Auschwitz.

Wannsee Conference At the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942 in Wannsee, a Berlin suburb, the details of the “Final Solution” were worked out. The meeting was convened by Reinhard Heydrich, who was the head of the S.S. main office and S.S. Chief Heinrich Himmler’s top aide. The purpose of the meeting was to coordinate the Nazi bureaucracy required to carry out the “Final Solution,” which provided for: Deportation of Jews to killing centers. Immediate death for those who were unable to work or the very young, the old, and the weak. Segregation by gender of the remaining Jews. Decimation through forced labor with insufficient nourishment. Eventual death for the remnant. Concentration Camps The Nazi concentration camps were established beginning in 1933 for the purpose of imprisoning political opponents. After the “Night of the Long Knives” (see Chapter 8, page 65), authority and management of the concentration camps was turned over to the S.S. The S.S. expanded the concentration camp system, and used these facilities to warehouse other “undesirables,” including hundreds of thousands of Jews.

Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen were among the first concentration camps built by the Nazis near Munich, Weimar, and Berlin respectively. Upon arrival at a camp, the inmates were usually stripped of all their valuables and clothes. They were then shorn of body hair, disinfected, given a shower, and issued a striped prison uniform without regard to size. Each step of the process was designed to dehumanize the prisoners, both physically and emotionally. Each prisoner was given a number. At Auschwitz, for example, the number was tattooed on the arm, but some camps did not tattoo their inmates. Life in the camps was a living hell. As described by Judah Pilch in “Years of the Holocaust: The Factual Story,” which appears in The Jewish Catastrophe in Europe, a typical day in the life of a concentration camp inmate began at dawn, when they were roused from their barracks which housed 300-800 inmates each. Their “beds” were bunks of slatted wood two and three tiers high. Frequently three to four prisoners shared each bunk, not permitting space enough for them to stretch out for normal sleep.

The inmates were organized into groups to go to the toilets, marched to a distribution center for a breakfast consisting of some bread and a liquid substitute for tea or coffee, and then sent out to work for 10-14 hours in mines, factories, and road or airfield building, often in sub-zero weather or the severe heat of summer. They were subjected to constant physical and emotional harassment and beating. The inmates’ food rations did not permit survival for very long. Those who resisted orders of the guards were shot on the spot. Numerous roll calls were held to assure that no prisoners had escaped. If one did attempt an escape, all of the inmates suffered for it. Death Camps The German skill in adapting the 20th century techniques of mass production was applied in engineering the “Final Solution.” In 1941, the engineers of the “Final Solution” utilized these same principles to cheaply and efficiently murder millions of Jews and other “undesirables.” The plants established to carry out this mass murder were the death camps. Unlike concentration camps, death camps had no barracks to house prisoners, other than those for workers at the camps.

In order to process the murder of thousands of people, great pains were taken to deceive the victims concerning their fate. Jews deported from ghettos and concentration camps to the death camps were unaware of what they were facing. The Nazi planners of the operation told the victims that they were being resettled for labor, issued them work permits, told them to bring along their tools and to exchange their German marks for foreign currency. Food was also used to coax starving Jews onto the trains. Once the trains arrived at the death camps, trucks were available to transport those who were too weak to walk directly to the gas chambers. The others were told that they would have to be deloused and enter the baths. The victims were separated by sex and told to remove their clothes. The baths were in reality the gas chambers. The shower heads in the baths were actually the inlets for poison gas. At Auschwitz, the gas chambers held 2,000 people at a time. With the introduction of a cyanide-based gas called Zyklon B, all 2,000 occupants could be killed in five minutes. As a result of this technological “advancement,” Auschwitz was able to “process” the death of 12,000 victims daily.

Before the bodies were removed by workers with gas masks and burned in crematoria, the teeth of the victims were stripped for gold, which was melted down and shipped back to Germany. Innocent victims were exploited and desecrated to a degree unknown in human history. Unlike the death camps of Treblinka, Chelmno, Sobibor, and Belzec, which were built and operated solely to kill Jews, the two death camps of Maidanek and Auschwitz also had a work camp attached. Upon arrival at these two camps, a selection was made at the train station concerning which Jews (about 10 percent of the arrivals) would be permitted to live and escape immediate gassing in the gas chambers. These “lucky” survivors were permitted to live only to the extent that they endured the physical and emotional trauma inflicted upon them. They were given a food ration that permitted them to survive for only three months. As they died from exhaustion, beatings, and starvation, they were replaced with newly arrived victims. Auschwitz was also used as the site for medical experimentation. Many of these experiments had little scientific value but were only exercises to discover how much torture a victim could endure until death.

By the end of 1944, an estimated two-and-a-half million Jews had died at Auschwitz. More than a quarter of a million Gypsies also died there. Einsatzgruppen or “Special Action Squads” Specially trained units of the S.S. followed the first wave of German army troops in the invasion of the Soviet Union (June 1941). Their orders were to execute on the spot all Communists, Jews, and Gypsies. It is estimated that by the end of 1942, they had killed more than a million Soviet Jews. These victims were shot or loaded into enclosed trucks modified for the introduction of carbon monoxide to asphyxiate its victims. An additional 400,000 were killed by other S.S. units, anti-Semitic native civilians, police units, and the German army. Babi Yar The Jews of Kiev were rounded up by the Einsatzgruppen for “resettlement” in late September 1941. Thousands of Jews were brought to a ravine on the outskirts of Kiev and mowed down by machine guns.

Many who were not wounded, including thousands of children, were thrown into the pit of bodies and were buried alive. According to an account in The Holocaust by Martin Gilbert, Ukrainian militia men joined in the slaughter. The records of the Einsatzgruppen unit which participated in the executions recorded 33,771 Jews killed at Babi Yar on September 29-30. In all, more than 100,000 persons, most of them Jews, were executed at Babi Yar between 1941-1943 by the Nazis. In the summer of 1943, the bodies were dug out by slave labor and burned to hide the evidence of the slaughter. Nazi Murder of Non-Jews While the focus of Nazi genocide was unquestionably targeted toward Jews, the Third Reich’s policy of mass murder was not restricted to Jews but devastated the ranks of other non-Aryans. Michael R. Marrus, in his book, The Holocaust in History, writes about the targets of Nazi murder: “The Nazis murdered between five million and six million Jews during the Holocaust, two-thirds of European Jewry and about one-third of the entire Jewish people.

But a staggering 55 million may have perished in all theaters during the Second World War including some 20 million Soviet citizens…five million Germans, and three million non-Jewish Poles…In all, some 18 million European civilians may have died as a result of famine, disease, persecution, and more conventional acts of war. “Awesome as they are, therefore, numbers do not in themselves prescribe the singularity of the Holocaust. But they provide a clue. For the proportion of European Jews killed during the Second World War, with roughly one of every three civilian deaths in Europe being that of a Jew, was undoubtedly greater than that of any other people, because of the Nazis’ policy toward them. Unlike the case with any other group, and unlike the massacres before or since, every single one of the millions of targeted Jews was to be murdered. Eradication was to be total. In principle, no Jew was to escape. In this important respect, the Nazis’ assault upon Jewry differed from the campaigns against other peoples and groups; Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Poles, Ukrainians, and so on.

Assaults on these people could indeed be murderous; their victims number in the millions, and their ashes mingle with those of the Jews of Auschwitz and many other camps across Europe. But Nazi ideology did not require their total disappearance. In this respect, the fate of the Jews was unique.” Gypsies Approximately a half million Gypsies (a dark-skinned, Caucasian ethnic group targeted by the Nazis) were murdered out of approximately 1.6 million who were living in Europe. The Gypsies in Germany and the occupied territories of the German War machine were subjected to many of the same persecutions as the Jews: restrictive, discriminatory laws, isolation and internment, and mass executions at their camp sites, in labor camps and death camps. Polish Christians Of the six million Poles murdered by the Nazis, half were Polish Christians. The Nazis considered the Poles and other Slavic peoples to be sub-human destined to serve as slaves to the Aryan “master race.” The Polish intelligentsia and political leadership was sought out specifically for execution, and other Polish civilians were slaughtered indiscriminately. Among the dead were more than 2,600 Catholic priests.

Ukrainians Almost four million Ukrainians fell victim to Nazi slaughter, through combat, starvation, and terror, particularly as a result of the efficient Einsatzgruppen. Of these, 900,000 were Jews, according to Bohdan Wytwychky’s The Other Holocaust: Many Circles of Hell. Other Victims of Nazi Genocide The Germans rounded up thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses and homosexuals and sent them to the death camps for extermination. Homosexuals were forced to wear pink triangles on their clothing paralleling the yellow Star of David for Jews. Death Marches By the beginning of 1945, the Soviet troops were advancing through Poland. The retreating Germans forced all remaining Auschwitz prisoners to march toward Germany under indescribably cruel conditions. Approximately 20,000 of 58,000 prisoners died en route, from exhaustion, starvation, cold, beatings, and executions by guards. In his bunker, in the Chancellory building in Berlin, knowing that the war was lost and that the “1,000 Year Reich” had lasted only a few years, Hitler committed suicide hours after marrying Eva Braun.

Germany formally surrendered to the Allies on May 7, 1945. By the end of the war, more than 55 million had died and 35 million wounded. Only 17 million of the dead were soldiers. Historical Events Listing April 9, 1940 – Germany invaded and occupied Denmark. April 27, 1940 – Himmler ordered the establishment of a concentration camp at Auschwitz. April 30, 1940 – The ghetto at Lodz, Poland, was sealed off. June 4, 1940 – Germany invaded Holland, Belgium, and France. June 29, 1940 – Marshal Petain surrenders France to the Germans. September 27, 1940 – The Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis was established. September 27, 1940 – The Warsaw Ghetto was sealed off, making thousands of Jews inside virtual prisoners under house arrest. June 22, 1941 – Germany invaded Greece and Yugoslavia. June 22, 1941 – The Germans attacked and declared war on the Soviet Union.

July 8, 1941 – Wearing of the Jewish Star was decreed in the German-occupied Baltic states. July 31, 1941 – S.S. Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich was appointed by Goering to carry out the “Final Solution”, the murder of all the Jews in Europe. September 1, 1941 – Wearing of the Jewish “Star of David” was decreed throughout the Greater Reich. October 1, 1941 – All Jewish emigration was halted. October 14, 1941 – Mass deportation to concentration camps of Jews from all over Nazi-controlled Europe began. December 8, 1941 – 27,000 were massacred in Riga. October 23, 1941 – 34,000 were massacred in Odessa. October 28, 1941 – 34,000 were massacred in Kiev. November 6, 1941 – 15,000 were massacred in Rovno.

December 7, 1941 – The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The United States entered the war. December 8, 1941 – Chelmno death camp on the Ner River in Poland opened and the first gassing took place. December 11, 1941 – Germany declared war on the United States. October 17, 1942 – The Allied Nations pledged to punish the Germans for their policy of genocide. Winter of 1943 – The tattered and frozen German army on the Eastern front surrendered to the Soviets at Stalingrad. April 1943 – The Bermuda Conference on Refugees was convened. The agenda was to discuss action by the Allies to rescue refugees in Europe under Nazi control. No formal action was agreed to. October 7, 1943 – Hitler ordered that all Jews of Denmark be deported to the death camps in Poland. Almost 95% of Danish Jews were whisked to Sweden, escaping the S.S. March 18, 1944 – The Germans invaded and occupied Hungary. Deportations of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz followed under the direction of Adolf Eichmann.

Mostly all of the half-million Hungarian Jews were sent to the gas chambers. June 1, 1944 – D-Day. The Allies invaded France at Normandy. VOCABULARY Auschwitz – The most infamous and largest of the Nazi death camps, located near Cracow in Southwestern Poland. Babi Yar – An area in the Soviet Union near Kiev, where thousands of civilians, most of whom were Jews, were murdered by the Nazis. crematorium – An oven where the bodies of newly murdered prisoners of camps, and those who died from other causes, were incinerated. death camps – Centers established in mostly rural areas designed specifically for mass murder. Six death camps (Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, Maidanek, Chelmno and Belzec) were established solely for the extermination of European Jewry. death marches – Forced marches under brutal conditions required of death camp and concentration camp inmates by the Nazis to avoid liberation by advancing Allied forces. Einsatzgruppen – “Special Action Squads” of the S.S. which had as their mission to seek out and murder Jews, Communists and Gypsies.

extermination – Mass murder, in the context of the killing of Jews in a manner which would be no less heinous than the killing of insects. Final Solution – The term used by the Nazis to describe their program of mass murder of the Jewish people. gas chamber – Rooms constructed to be air-tight so that poison gas introduced into the room would kill large numbers of people. Gypsies – A dark-skinned, Caucasian ethnic group with origins in India who had, in many cases in Europe, a migratory way of life. labor camp – A prison camp where the prisoners were used as slave labor for German industry and war machine. tuberculosis – An infectious disease which can affect any organ, but particularly attacks the lungs. typhus – Disease transmitted by lice or fleas which was epidemic in concentration camps. zyklon B – A cyanide gas developed to kill Jews at Auschwitz in a manner which was more efficient than using carbon monoxide gas. ACTIVITIES Research the average daily calorie intake of people in the United States and the developing world, and compare this to the average intake of a concentration camp inmate. Research why the Nazis kept detailed chronicles of all aspects of their genocide.

Research the story of “The Precious Legacy.” What did the Nazis have in mind by creating this exhibit? Define the following words using their dictionary definition, and construct another definition, using the Nazi context if appropriate: murder massacre euthanasia mass-murder slaughter liquidation deportation assassination pogrom decimation execution terrorism killing extermination persecution genocide holocaust What do these words have in common? Which words above are interchangeable? Which are euphemisms? Which may be condoned (and under what circumstances) and which may not? Why is there sensitivity among scholars and survivors of the Holocaust on how these words are used? DISCUSSION QUESTIONS Discuss what you would have taken into a ghetto had you been deported to one. How did the Nazis succeed in carrying out the Final Solution? Why were the orders from the top obeyed all the way down the chain of command? EVALUATION typhus Gypsies 2. Describe life in the Nazi ghettos for the Jews and the major differences between these ghettos and those of the Middle Ages. 3. What was the mission of the Einsatzgruppen? Who were their targets? What methods did they use to accomplish their mission? 4.

Who was Adolf Eichmann, and what was his job? 5. How was the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia different than any other ghetto? 6. Name three death camps, and briefly describe typical conditions in one. 7. What was the Wannsee Conference? Who convened it? What was its purpose? 8. What prompted the Nazis to order the “death marches” of 1945? 9. Why were experiments performed on inmates of the death camps? TEACHING STRATEGIES Show the class the book and filmstrip, I Never Saw Another Butterfly. Recreate the discussions on human nature and values from previous chapters. Let the students describe if their views on human nature have changed as a result of learning about what occurred during the “Final Solution.” Have students view the film, The Wannsee Conference. Study guides on this film are available (contact the Holocaust Resource Center nearest you). Read to the class poignant excerpts from Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.

Question: Which Nazi was known as the 'Chief Executioner of the Third Reich' as he organised the transportation of people to the concentration camps?
Answer: ADOLF EICHMANN